Brian Daboll’s Final Hail Mary
Whelp, the Russell Wilson Giants experience lasted 3 starts. He was dreadful against Washington. Then he put up a career day in a mirage performance against Dallas’ dumpster defense. He came home with some dignity back under his name to face a weaker KC squad. The result was one of the worst games Russ has played. He arm-punted multiple moonballs directly into triple coverage. In maybe the most embarrassing sequence of the game, the Giants found their way into the redzone and Russ launched 3 pass attempts way out of the back of the endzone. Even on 4th down, when throwing it away is a massive disaster. You could hear the cries for Dart and the boos through the TV broadcast.
So here we are. Rookie Jaxson Dart has been given the starting job. They woke him up before September ended. This is it. This is the final card Brian Daboll had to play to save his job. If this doesn’t work out, I doubt they even survive till January. And it’s probably not going to work out. Nor should it, because I’m tired of this staff. Daboll especially.
In the earlier days of this disaster regime, namely year two and early year 3, the general consensus was Schoen was the problem and maybe we’d be better off if we could somehow fire Schoen but keep Daboll. Slightly into year 4, I’ve kind of swung in the opposite direction and I think Daboll is the bigger problem. I think Schoen should probably also just go, but looking back on more data I think Schoen has done an okay job. The team has talent on it. The cap situation is fair enough and the Jones contract debacle only hurt for a short time period. The drafting has been alright. He has done work to address roster issues. Most of his offseason moves I’ve been happy with, or at least contented by. What I’m seeing is a lot of these moves not working out because Daboll and company dont know how to develop and use these talents. I see a distinct failure of development across the board.
This team has talent. This team, on paper, should not be this anemic. The defense should be relatively stout and angry. The offense should have plenty of functional weapons, and the offensive line has veteran talent and young talent on it. But none of these players are developing. No one seems to improve. Kayvon feels like the same underwhelming performer he was as a rookie. Deonte Banks keeps getting benched. JMS is a terrible center. Evan Neal is a complete bust. When a GM keeps drafting busts, especially with high draft position…maybe the problem isn’t the picks or the GM. Maybe the problem is the coaching. None of Schoen’s “bad” draft picks were rated badly at the time of picking. Not every bust is on the team, sometimes guys just fail. But I see a pattern of talent coming to the Giants and not doing shit. That’s a coaching problem.
Brian Daboll got this job by “being the guy who developed Josh Allen”. But Josh Allen has only gotten better since he left. Maybe the Bills are just a smarter regime. Maybe Josh Allen is built differently and put in the work himself. Xavier McKinney was a good player on NY, and now he’s an All-Pro on a team that knows what they are doing. Saquon Barkley was a star for NY, but he turned into a god on one of the best talent development franchises in the league. Now, and most damningly of all, Daniel Jones is thriving as the QB we wished we had for 3 seasons under Daboll. The guy we brought in to “fix” Daniel Jones as this QB whisperer has been dreadful, while Jones himself instantly turned into an NFL-caliber quarterback the second he got into a functional offense. It’s still too early to say Daniel Jones is genuinely good now. But him playing better ball than he ever played in NY to start this season is apocalyptic for Daboll and Schoen, who kept their jobs in January by convincing Mara it was Jones’ fault the whole time.
Daboll consistently has this team looking undisciplined, weak, and underprepared. He can’t decide whether he wants to call plays or not. He’s routinely fumbled kicking injury situations. He yells at players on the sideline all the time. Players look routinely annoyed and upset. He makes weird gameday calls all the time. He can’t adjust or rally the troops. Daboll sucks. Maybe he works as an offensive coordinator, but he’s not head coach material.
I don’t know if I even want Dart to succeed under this regime at all. If Dart balls out, this dopey thumb of a coach is going to keep his job. He doesn’t deserve to. I don’t want the Giants to just be another Bears, a team that panic drafts a QB at the end of a regime’s thread and then forces the next regime to try and fix that mistake until they repeat it, but Mara tried to give Daboll slack and patience and he has rewarded us with garbage.
Dart, just don’t die out there. Do your best, and throw these bums under a bus when you get the chance to later this year.
The Giants are the answer to the question of “Would you tolerate being trash for 20-25 years if it meant you won a Super Bowl?”
And they will remain trash until they win their next super bowl in 20 years.
Is Daboll the worst COTY of all time?
Since it was two Superbowls and one stopping Brady from an undefeated season I’d say it was worth it. We weren’t that bad before hand either with one in the early 90s then an appearance in 2000. But the past 10 years have really sucked. I’ll take the two wins in the past 30 years over better records and more playoff appearances, however it’s been long enough. We should start the process of no longer sucking.
Dude. Dude. My dude. Dude. Schoen let Saquon walk to PHILLY. He has let players like Xavier McKinney walk and replaced them with overpaid bums. He re-signed a kicker who gets injured during warmups… and when he got injured again before a game during warmups, they HAD NO BACKUP KICKER. NO. There is no “Schoen should *probably* go.” here. These two are a package deal of incompetent fuckwadery, and neither of them have done ANYTHING to show that they don’t deserve to be fired RIGHT NOW. They both need to get punted into the sun, or some other team where they’ll probably mystically become amazing. John Mara is equally as culpable in all of this, but since we can rest assured he won’t fire himself… it’s gonna be another go round of incompetent idiots finding more incompetent idiots to hire while all the nepo Maras in the building will get to continue chewing on pencil lead and spinning in their chairs.
If Gemini is accurate (I can’t be bothered to do the math myself) the Giants are 57-101-1 since Coughlin resigned. That’s the point at which John Mara finally replaced one of the pieces his father had installed. Since then, Mara has been fully steering the ship, and to call it anything other than a catastrophic failure is being extraordinarily generous.
I certainly hope Dart finds success, but like, even if this kid looks amazing and puts up a winning record… these dbags need to be fired. Wilson threw for 400 some odd yards against the Cowboys with absolutely ZERO offensive gameplan, mostly because the Cowboys forgot there was a game on. But throwing for 450 yards doesn’t mean we call that a masterfully drawn up offense. I’m in favor of firing Daboll *NOW*, basically. Let Kafka take over as interim HC so we can see how much of his incompetence was a direct result of Daboll. Dart’s performance should NOT be viewed as ANY kind of inference to whether these asswipes should keep their jobs. 0-3 is it. You’re both out, it’s just a questionf of when. But yea, Mara is a toolbox, so like I said before, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he kept both of these morons if Dart looks decent. He himself is a moron, so it just makes sense.
Whoops, major typo on my part. I meant to write that the Giants are 57-101-1 since Coughlin “”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””resigned””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””.
We need to stop saying he sent Barkley or let Barkley walk to Philly. Schoen had no control over where Saquon went, that was Saquon’s choice. If he went to Houston, etc none of us would have a problem, and most of us were fine with letting Barkley walk at the time. Schoen’s mistake with Barkley was not offering him the slightly better contract in 2022 forcing them to pay Jones instead. We were fine with that at the time because Barkley had spent most of his years injured and looked a bit washed. I am not going to blame him for Barkley choosing Philly of his own accord and balling out.
McKinney was a cap casualty of the Jones contract which is I guess his fault. I don’t think Schoen deserves to stay employed, but I think Daboll is actually the bigger problem. The two of them are tied at the hip so the chance one stays while the other goes is pretty low anyway.
I would normally agree, but he ABSOLUTELY burned the bridge with Saquon. That conversation they had, where Schoen is dumbly nodding, like, “You’re gonna let me make an offer, right?” You can HEAR THE LOATHING in Saquon’s voice. And I’m obviously not part of the locker room, but anytime I hear people mention the locker room, it’s about how the players hate him for letting all of their talent walk. I’ll agree with you that maaaaybe his incompetent player management is less egregious than Daboll’s awful team management, and at the end of the day, yea, I don’t see a world where Schoen stays. I do think Daboll will get the axe in the next week or two, if things go poorly, but Schoen will probably see the season through. If I were Mara, I would 100% tell him he’s no longer authorized to make personnel moves without sign-off, though. They’re playing Dart to save their asses, not because he’s ready, a dereliction of duty worthy of being fired regardless of everything else. Frikkin’ frakkin’ morons.
I dont see anyone actually getting fired in the next week or two unless we somehow get embarrassed by the Saints, but I’d be surprised if he sees Dec, or at least all of it. We don’t really have anyone on staff to act as a solid interim.
I dunno, man. They have looked AWFUL. That Cowboys game had no business being close. They basically looked WOEFULLY unprepared for the Commanders, and woefully unprepared for the Chiefs. If they don’t show SOME kind of actual gameplan in the next week or two other than, “Show up and twiddle your thumbs, then tell reporters after the game that you need to review the tape and play better,” then yea, he’s probably only got a week or two of leash left. At least, *I* think that’s about as much leash as he should have left. I don’t want him ruining my fancy new QB with his incompetence.
Even if Dart looks great at this point I don’t see Daboll or Schoen surviving into 2026; nor would I want them to. Though I would wish the latter well on getting a second chance as a GM somewhere in the future, he’s been uneven but he’s at least shown an ability to go with the conventional wisdom and be a good soldier so plenty of owners will like him. Daboll might at best be a good cruise control OC. I don’t think I’d want anyone else from the Belichick tree after him and Judge. Shane Bowen should be moonballed by Russ into the tunnel much earlier.
But I’m glad they’re putting Dart out there not because I think it’ll salvage the season, but to (ideally) show enough to the next GM/HC tandem that there are good bones in place and there’s one less item on their fixit list, or alternately show them he’s not it so they’ll know upfront they’ll need their own QB either in 2026 or (preferably) 2027. Keeping Dart an unknown/barely used option would be the worst scenario for the next tandem.
As much as Dabol is washed, dried, sorted, and folded, Schoen is the bigger villain here. 4 year deal for Jones? Jones over Saquon? Saquon in division? I’ll even blame him for Medium Pepsi Gate.
Throwing Dart to the wolves in week 3 could blow up his development. Note that the Patriots at least waited until Jacoby Brisket was atomized and the line slightly more healthy to bring in Maye.
No, we need to stop this retroactive Schoen blame. Schoen did not send him to Philly. Barkley chose Philly himself. Barkley rejected all Schoen’s deals, which is what forced the Jones deal. If the Giants gave Barkley what he wanted the Giants would be getting mocked for paying an often-injured RB way too much, and he wouldn’t be the player he is in Philly.
The Jones deal wasn’t that bad. It was medium level QB money for 2 years, with an easy out after that. It was made under the impression Jones would, you know, continue his upward development. He did not, he crashed and burned. That crash is mostly Daboll’s fault. If Jones was playing as he is now in Indy, that deal is basically perfect. Schoen made a fair call, and it failed, because Daboll fucking sucks at his job. Schoen invested in the line and got him weapons, and he still failed. This is a coaching failure. Schoen should be fired, but I think Daboll is actually the rot.
It’s such an obvious and terrible move by Daboll. Dart did not practice with the first team during the offseason and it seemed that he’d be spending his rookie year learning behind Wilson & Winston(the QBs, not the 70s detective agency). Now after just 3 weeks Dart is starting. You can’t tell me after not giving his main reps during the offseason, that after seeing him on the bench and in practice for only 3 weeks that he’s ready. Mara needs to clean house as soon as possible and start the new coach and GM search now.
Fully agreed. Personally, I would show them the door RIGHT NOW. Mara is an idiot, so it probably won’t happen, but I’d be like, “You two JACKASSES told me you were building in the right direction, and all I see is MORE OF THE SAME. The QB you claimed was “holding you back” is currently on pace to break all of Peyton’s scoring records with the Colts. GOODBYE.” Even more sadly, Mara is a major part of the problem, so I’m not even sure we should expect better from the next regime. We’re no longer having a few down years… WE ARE THE JETS. ='(
I’ll credit Daboll for really getting Josh Allen comfortable with an NFL offense and you did see a dropoff when Daboll left.
The thing is, once Allen had an OC who actually organized a consistent run game and brought back Aaron Kromer as O line coach the team found out that if you don’t make Josh Allen play Hero Ball on every single play you still get Josh Allen Highlight Reel moments but with fewer head scratching turnovers
I think, if nothing else, it shows why Dave has his “3 years or you’re out” thought when it comes to coaches; you can’t really analyze how good a move is until you get enough evidence to really start placing down patterns.
I feel like the Jets’ Saleh/Douglas regime was similar to this; Douglas was able to put talent on that team but made some pretty decent screwups (mainly at QB), which Saleh wasn’t able to cover up well because he wasn’t an offensive mind (which’s likely why they went for Rodgers, now that I think about it; you could basically just have him run the offense), which eventually led to both of their demises.
I think it ultimately speaks to why having both a good GM and coach is important, or at least having a duo who can compensate for each other’s flaws; for all the (deserved) talk about how a GM can drag down a team, this really opened my eyes to how a shit coach can ruin even good GM moves. Remember when Pederson got fired from the Eagles how much they wanted Howie to go? That seems ridiculous now, but for all of Sirianni’s flaws, he and Howie wouldn’t have gone to the playoffs 4 years in a row with two Super Bowl appearances (this also makes me look at Poles on the Bears in a different light; how much of his bad moves were due to the fact that Eberflus sucks ass?)
As for the Giants, Schoen is probably a packaged deal with Daboll and I’m not surprised if other Giants fans would just like to move on from Schoen, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he gets another chance. Looking back on what you wrote in the past, you do actually seem pretty pleased about the draft picks Schoen for the most part (besides this year) and his free agent signings at least make sense. There’s a decent argument to be made that he won’t improve/get worse with a new coach and Giants fans are probably already sick of him but frankly I think he could stick around.
Daboll is done though. The fact that Daniel Jones has immediately gotten better under Steichen I think has sealed the deal on the fact that Daboll cannot develop players, much less a QB; he and McDaniel are definitely racing to be the first coach fired.
January? How optimistic of you Dave. If Dart is a bust Im putting my money on Daboll being gone by November
and Schoen right with him
Dart could be the 2nd coming of Mahomes and I still wouldnt bet on the Giants getting more than 5 wins, the oline went from laughingstock of the league during the last Eli years to so depressingly bad ppl dont even talk about them anymore
Daboll is my dark horse for the first to get fired; if they continue to lose in terrible fashion he’ll be out the door sooner than later